How ME/CFS & FM Even Makes Grieving More Difficult

My BIL died over the weekend after a 2 1/2 year battle with cancer. When he first became ill he weighed over 250 pounds and he was around 100 pounds when he died Sunday morning. It was awful slowly watching this great man die. I don’t even want to begin to imagine what those 2 1/2 long years were like for his wife.

But we all know how stress, grief, and any type of extreme emotion affects our ME/CFS & Fibromyalgia symptoms. Monday was a really bad day for me and I was unable to function the entire day. The whole emotional turmoil of watching someone in the family die, trying to be there for the family and wanting to do whatever you can to help the distraught spouse does not agree well with chronic illnesses like CFS.

I have often wondered how my body will respond when someone in my own family dies and if I will be able to physically withstand the grieving process. I seem to have a lot of trouble physically dealing. I know some of that comes from being the type of person who grieves by getting busy. I find that I “deal”with grief by initially getting very busy and throwing myself into whatever it is I can. Then I guess my body doesn’t like that so it will shut down on me.

When my husband had a triple bypass, I didn’t do well physically either. I ended up working two jobs to help make ends meet at the time but my body eventually gave out and just the stress of worrying about him all of the time was worse for me than actually working the two jobs.

I wish I could find a way to deal with stress, grief and all of those emotions better. Any suggestions?

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I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia in 2003, after suffering from symptoms since 1996. I have lost three good friends since October 2007 ( the latest last week) and my younger son, who lives with me, lost his two best friends within the past two years. Every time I learn that someone close to me has died, I grieve terribly. I end up in bed for weeks, aching and in pain all over. I cannot even go to the funeral home anymore. I did go to the cemetery for the burial of my son’s friend who died in June this year, but I literally had to drag myself out of bed, into the shower and out of the house. My friend who recently died lived in Georgia and the services were held there so I did not have to make the decision to go to the wake or funeral.

I have come to the conclusion that time is the only healer. I just wait it out and eventually I can get up and go again. However, my “get up and go again” only lasts a few days. Then I am back in bed with the aches and pains and insomnia.

My 39-year-old son had a recent mild heart attack two days after my 88-year-old mother had a pacemaker put in. I was back in bed the day after the pacemaker procedure and the next day, I drug myself out of bed to go to the hospital to see my son after he had a stent put in his heart. I was back in bed the day after and got out only once a week later to go see my mom at the rehab facility and then back to bed. Tomorrow, my son will have another stent put in. I hope and pray I can get myself together to be there for him.

I retired almost three years ago because the stress of the job was taking its toll on my body. I would just crash for three or four weeks, not being able to get out of bed. Now it seems like any type of stress has an effect on me.

In a way, I have just succumbed to this debilitating condition and have learned to accept that I am not going to feel good most of the time. When I do feel good, I do as much as I can in that short time frame before I am back in bed.

I wish there was a magic pill that would take the fibromyalgia away. Lyrica is not it!